Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels

by Daniel Arenson

  A cloud passed over Garet’s mind. Where was he? He looked at the mask of the helmet in front of him. He could dimly see Dasanat’s eyes within, split into multiple images by the crystals, each one pleading with him to listen. The feeling of joy was still there, but as Dasanat clenched him to the protective armour, the little voice he had earlier dismissed gained strength.

  “Dasanat!” he said. “What’s happening?”

  The mechanical yelled back, “It’s the demon, Garet! It’s controlling you!” Her voice was frantic.

  Looking up from his position on the floor, he could see that Salick was almost within the creature’s grasp. Groaning with the effort, he lifted the mechanical to her feet, keeping her between him and the demon.

  “Go!” he yelled, pushing her ahead of him as fast as he could. “Grab her!” he instructed Dasanat as they reached Salick.

  The mechanical wrapped her arms around Salick’s waist, as she had done with Garet, and they both struggled to drag the protesting Bane back from the death she was so willing to embrace.

  The demon hissed and screeched in frustration. It climbed off the body of its first kill and onto the piled mats of its nest, preparing to leap on the three struggling figures. With a gut-tearing wrench, Garet pulled them all down onto the floor as the demon sailed over them to land in a heap beyond.

  The feeling of joy ceased, as abruptly as the closing of a door cuts off noise. Salick cried out, and Garet shook his head at the suddenness of it. He rolled out from under Dasanat and pulled Salick to her feet.

  “Help me get her up,” he told Salick, and they both lifted the limp mechanical. The helmet lolled to one side, and Garet feared that he had knocked her out by pulling her down to avoid the demon. He positioned the armour-clad figure in front of him and Salick, taking what protection he could against its recovery.

  The Caller, for that was what it must be, shook itself off the floor and glared at them from one, yellow eye. This close, Garet could see the other eye socket was gouged and empty, the effect of his stone thrown so long ago near the abandoned Temple market. The demon seemed to recognize him as well, for its single eye never left his face as it advanced on the trio.

  Salick pulled her clawed baton from her belt and thrust it forward but the short weapon was unable to reach much beyond the armour that protected them. Garet could not take it to wield against the demon and support the unconscious Dasanat at the same time. There was little they could do except back away as the demon advanced on them, claws raised.

  No joy came from it now, nor any other emotion, as if in its anger, it would do nothing else but rend and tear the Bane that had once maimed it. Ignoring Dorict, who was closer to the beast than the others, the demon quickly outpaced their awkward backwards shuffle and struck at the mechanical facing it. The blow passed in front of the helmet, a few inches from the silkstone surface.

  The demon hissed in frustration and struck again, with the same result. It launched itself at the armoured figure, but came up short against it in mid air, obviously before it expected to make contact. Dazed, it stumbled backwards a few paces.

  What’s wrong with it? It’s as if it can’t tell where things really are. A memory of his life in the Midlands came to him. His brother Gitel sitting at the table after losing a brawl with a neighbouring farm boy, his left eye purpled and closed. He remembered his father’s mocking voice telling his brother, “Don’t bother trying to even up the score just yet. You’re useless for now! No one can land a blow with only one eye!”

  That was it, the one thing that might save them. But he had forgotten the beast’s other powers. The frustrated Caller paused in its slow approach and opened its pointed mouth in a prolonged hiss. Fear flooded the room, curling around the edges of their protective shield and gripping their minds. Salick bowed her head against Garet’s back, moaning a little. Garet made himself as small as he could behind the armoured woman he held to them, but even then, he could barely breathe. Dasanat was safe in the armour, but unable to fully protect them.

  Just as the sense of joy had been stronger than they had experienced before, the fear hammering at them was far worse than any they had encountered. It was as if the creature’s rage increased the power of its jewel. The fear ran along their windpipes and closed them off. It twitched their muscles and plucked at their racing hearts. Garet felt it as a physical pain in his skull, much worse than Draneck’s sword through his leg, or the beating he had taken from the Digger.

  Unable to command his body any longer, he let Dasanat slide to the floor at his feet. He collapsed to his knees beside her, dimly aware that Salick had done the same. His universe had collapsed to a single yellow eye that set fires in all the far and near reaches of his being but would not let him die, not yet.

  The demon crawled towards them, carefully on all fours, like a dog. It seemed to savour their pain and paused to run its forked tongue between the rows of needle teeth. A clatter behind it made the beast shift to look with its good eye over one shoulder.

  Mandarack and Marick had entered the far door. Leaning against the Red, the small Bane held the tray of spark jars and the silkstone box. With clumsy hands, he tried to connect the wires to the jars, but the jerking of his own muscles defeated him. With a cry, he dropped the tray to the floor and fell backwards, clutching at his temples. Mandarack advanced, leaving Marick pinned to the ground by his terror. The old Bane moved slowly, leaning forward into the waves of fear like a traveller into a heavy wind. His withered arm hung limply at his side while the other, clad in its shield, was held out, as if feeling for the proper path. The Hallmaster shuffled painfully towards the demon, passing Dorict without a word or a look.

  With an effort almost beyond him, Garet held his head up to look at the advancing Bane. As he came closer, Garet wept to see a trickle of blood flowing down Mandarack’s chin from where he had bit his lip in the struggle to keep moving. More blood dripped to the floor from the straps of the trembling shield, as the Hallmaster used all his resources to fight the crushing fear.

  The demon turned to face the old man, reared back on its hind legs and spread its thin arms as if in welcome. The waves of fear intensified, rolled them over and over, drowning them and exploding like soundless thunder in their heads. Mandarack cried out, a drawn-out groan that came from the depths of the stoic Bane. Salick’s own tears fell on Garet’s neck and she clutched at his tunic in her distress.

  The two were almost within reach of one another. The creature drew back one arm and held the other out in an attempt to judge the distance. Mandarack stumbled a bit and came to a stop, the outstretched tip of his shield touching the claws of the Caller’s reaching hand.

  Both Bane and demon struck, struck at the same instant, the claws slashing at the Bane’s neck and chest as the tip of the shield tore through the tough hide of the Caller’s throat in Mandarack’s last, desperate lunge. The creature threw back its crested head and tried to screech, but a horrible, bubbling hiss came out of its blood-frothed mouth. It collapsed across the legs of the Hallmaster, both bodies motionless on the gymnasium floor.

  The reduction of the fear was disorienting, and at first, Garet could not move. He could only retch weakly as Salick crawled over him to Mandarack’s still form. She kicked the corpse of the demon off Mandarack’s legs and pulled her Master’s grey head up into her lap.

  Garet finally managed to crawl after her. She was using her gold sash to dab away the blood from Mandarack’s face. There was no sense trying to stop the blood from the ruin of his chest. The demon’s claws had lain open the Bane’s heart and cut the life from it. Garet removed his vest and laid it over the wounds. Salick wept over the body, rocking slightly back and forth.

  Garet looked up at the drawn faces of Dorict and Marick and said, “Help me with Dasanat.” He looked at Salick. “Then we’ll take care of the Master.”

  “I’ll stay with him,” she said, one hand caressing the pale cheeks of the man she held.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
r />   THE TEMPLE

  The third Temple dome, closest to the river, was traditionally reserved for the King and Lords of the city. There they looked up at the night sky dome, their expensive leather boots held by servants outside the ring of pillars, and pleaded for whatever the powerful might still desire. Their daughters and their sons joined hands in marriage on those cool tiles, and when they died, the priests laid them there to rest, to look up with sightless, open eyes, to study the way they must go.

  Banes, even the most revered, were laid like any citizen in the northernmost dome before being carried with songs and tears to the burning grounds outside the walls. But today the traditions were remade. The funeral procession of Hallmaster Mandarack came sighing and rustling over the centre bridge and weaved its way through the wintered gardens towards the Temple dome of the Lords of the City.

  No sound came from the ranks of Banes who had cast off their cloaks to show the sashes and uniforms of their Hall to a city that once again accepted them. Equally silent were the Ward Lords who stood side by side with the Masters, carrying the bier. Lord Andarack led them on the left, the pole held tightly to his shoulder and tears flowing down his cheeks. Branet, the new Hallmaster, led them on the right, with no tears but a stricken look on his face. Tarix limped beside her husband’s place, her newly-braced leg supported by a single crutch. Behind them all came the men and women of the city, their bright tunics like fire trailing from the darker mass that preceded them.

  A small group stood on the terrace in front of the Temple, broken up into pairs and trios, waiting for the procession to cross the plaza. Some were priests, awaiting the body, others were Mandarack’s remaining relatives. And there were four others. Garet stood with Salick at the edge of the terrace. Dorict and Marick stood a little ways off, rubbing their red noses and taking what comfort they could in each other’s company.

  “They’ll be here in a moment,” Salick said. She held a long, white cloth folded over her arm. Behind her, the Temple bell sounded the first of the many booming notes that it would give voice to that day.

  Garet waited for the vibrations to end before he spoke. “Why don’t they speak, or sing, or shout?” he asked, nodding towards the crowds still coming through the centre bridge gate.

  “The bell speaks for all of us,” Salick replied. She hugged the cloth to her and leaned against his shoulder. Tears flowed down her cheeks, tears that had never really stopped over the last two days.

  Garet had found her crying over the body of her Master when he returned with Banerict to the gymnasium. The physician, who had been paralyzed by the powerful fear the Caller Demon finally broadcast, had roused himself at the creature’s death and was helping the injured Duelist to the infirmary when Garet found him. Garet had borrowed the physician’s tools to remove the Caller’s jewel, for as Andarack had predicted it had still been broadcasting fear. With the jewel secured in the silkstone box, Banerict was able to enter the gymnasium to assist the Banes. Together, they had laid Mandarack’s body in the cold air of the infirmary’s garden. They had covered him with a blanket and left him to be watched over by Salick and by more and more returning Banes. Even when Relict had finally forced her to rest in the infirmary, she had cried silently in her fitful sleep. In the confusion and meetings that followed, he had seen little of her until this morning.

  Now she wiped the tears away and stood straighter as the procession advanced. It was a heartbreakingly clear winter day, the sky a cutting blue and the wind gusting cold across the open plaza. Salick’s hair, released from its braids for the funeral, whipped out and across his face, covering him for moment in warmth. He did not move.

  She did. Turning to face him, Salick asked, “Where did you go? After, I mean.”

  “I had to report to the new Hallmaster,” he replied. “Master Branet was chosen as soon as they all assembled in the Records room. Relict nominated him. Then Andarack and the King were sent for, and I had to tell it all again.” He yawned, hiding his open mouth behind his hand. “Andarack wanted to examine the Caller’s jewel. It was incredibly large, twice the size of a Shrieker’s jewel, but it was,” he paused to search for the word, “normal again. No worse than any other dead demon’s.” He shook his head, and then yawned again.

  Salick bit down to stop an echoing yawn. “I want to rest so much when this is done,” she said wistfully. “I feel such a need to do nothing but think and remember for a long, long time.” She pulled back the whipping strands of hair from her eyes to watch the procession. “There’s Trax,” she said, pointing.

  Garet looked. The King was indeed there, far across the plaza. He walked just in front of the bier carrying Mandarack’s body. In golden robes and a bejewelled baldric, the short, muscular figure drew all eyes as he set the pace for the Banes and Lords behind him. But no crown sat on his head, and no sword rested in the jewelled sheath at his hip. Out of respect for the man he escorted to the Temple, Trax carried only one symbol of authority this day. Across his outstretched arms lay Mandarack’s red and black sash.

  “He honours us,” Garet said.

  Salick nodded reluctantly. “I suppose he does, but it still rankles, him being part of this. I will never trust him!”

  In the two days since the Caller’s destruction, only one other demon had been caught within the city walls, a small Rat Demon that was easily dispatched by the now-frequent patrols. Hopeful that things were finally returning to normal, the people of Shirath had emerged like bright-winged butterflies from their homes, ready to build and repair, to buy and sell, to celebrate and mourn. Every citizen who could walk or be carried had travelled across the three bridges early this morning to take part in the funeral march.

  The procession had stopped half-way across the plaza. The guild leaders and minor aristocrats met them in a folding line of purple and silver. They pushed gently between the Banes and Lords holding the bier to touch the black cloth draped over Mandarack’s body. The King’s face was somber as he led the pallbearers at a slower pace to accommodate the greater crowd. That crowd now flowed up behind them, engulfing the bier and filling every space between the gates and the Temple’s terraced walls.

  Garet and Salick stepped aside as priests moved around the raised area at the head of the ramp, brass censors swinging back and forth in their grips, the smoke giving a brief scent of burning herbs before the breeze blew it away. The purification of the terrace complete, the priests replaced the censors in ornate cages on the posts supporting the cylindrical bell. As it sounded again, a priest, his robe just a shade of blue darker than the winter sky above, opened his arms and chanted.

  The wind slapped at the two Banes again. The last group of notables had touched the pall draping the bier, and the procession resumed its slow progress. Trax glittered at its head. Salick and Garet paused in their conversation, taken by the way the swaying, bright mass of citizens parted to let the King and pallbearers through.

  The bier paused at the entrance to the only straight path through the Temple gardens. A pair of priests joined Trax, ceremoniously taking his elbows to escort him to the ramp leading up to the Temples. Salick and Garet waited on the terrace. Their part in the ceremony would not come until later.

  The procession slowed again, allowing the pallbearers more time to carry the bier up the incline. The two Banes moved back, merging with the small knot of relatives holding strips of blue or white cloth.

  Salick turned towards him. “I can’t imagine my life without him, Garet. I know he freed me from a life of anger and resentment. He gave me a greater purpose.”

  Garet reached across and drew the yellow strands away from her eyes. “I know, Salick. He did the same for me. He saved me from…”

  He didn’t want to finish his thought, but Salick’s eyes, pleading for any distraction from the grief approaching them, forced him to continue.

  “He saved me from the life of a dreamer who never left his dreams to live a real life. And that would have been the best I could have hoped for.”
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br />   “What would have been the worst?” she asked.

  “To become a man like my father,” he answered. There, he had said it.

  “Never,” Salick said, taking his arm in hers. “If there was even the smallest chance of that, the Master would have left you in that pesthole. No, Garet, he knew your quality, and he knew that men like you would be needed—especially now.”

  He knew she had given him a great gift with these words, greater than he deserved, perhaps, but for a gift, one must give a gift—truth for truth.

  “I thank you, Salick. But I could never match him. The best I can hope for is to be someone the Master would have respected. Someone like you.”

  He felt her shiver against his shoulder. He slipped his arm out of hers and put it around her waist, holding her until she was still.

  “But whatever I become, I’ll never be my father’s son—you saved me from that,” he said. “You, the Master, Marick and Dorict. You gave me this new life.” He took his other hand and traced the small, crescent-shaped scar on her cheek. He had several scars to match it on his own body. “A dangerous life, perhaps, but I wouldn’t trade it, even if I could make those old dreams come true.”

  Salick leaned against him, the tears coming again.

  An old woman turned and shushed them fiercely. The bier had reached the top of the ramp and the King was passing in glory before them.

  Salick, ashamed, stiffened and took a deep breath to control herself. A priest came up behind them and laid a kindly hand on Salick’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, Bane,” he said. “The dead are listening to other things now, other voices. Let your tears flow as they will. You are not the only one crying in the city today.” He led her and Garet, along with the small knot of relatives, around the temple to wait on the other side of the pillars while the Hallmaster’s body was lifted from the bier and carried under the dome to lie on the cold, marble tiles. He then left them to listen to the chants of the inner priests. Lord Andarack came forward and knelt by the head of the corpse and opened the unseeing eyes. The words of the priests seemed to echo back from the dome until the terrace rang with a harmony of prayers. For many minutes the chanting continued, and then, at some signal Garet missed, it ended on a single, soaring note.